Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles, evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related issues.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

There is the widespread view among religious moderates that there could be nothing objectionable about their participating in religious activities, ceremonies, and services as long as they don’t take some of the more outrageous, harmful, or erroneous claims seriously. In fact, this may be the most common position out there. “I enjoy going to church. I find the community edifying. The ceremonies are beautiful and inspiring. The art and music are wonderful,” etc. Even among famous religious skeptics, we find a soft spot for the cultural, emotive, and dramatic aspects of participating in religion. Richard Dawkins, perhaps to the dismay of believers, raves about the beauty of church hymns and music. Paul Kurtz describes this confined but rosy set of roles for religion, “The domain of the religious, I submit, is evocative, expressive, emotive. It presents moral poetry, aesthetic inspiration, performative ceremonial rituals, which act out and dramatize the human condition and human interests, and seek to slake the thirst for meaning and purpose. . . Religious language in this sense is eschatological. Its primary function is to express hope.” (Are Science and Religion Compatible?)

Kurtz, like a great many religious believers, endorses a kind of compatibilism regarding science and religion. There is no tension, no conflict, and no disagreement between the two because religion, as they describe it, has been scrubbed clean of the factual claims, all pretense to knowledge, and all of the assertions. The cognitive dissonance of compartmentalizing their religious activities from their scientific, empirical, and factual views is diminished because the religious moderate is just in it for the culture—the bells and smells, if you will. The religious moderate can’t really take the claim seriously that all life on earth was created in its present for 10,000 years ago, or that the juice and crackers actually turn into flesh and blood in your mouth, or that Adam and Eve were the first humans, or that snakes and burning bushes can talk. “We don’t actually, literally believe that stuff. But participating is edifying and wonderful, and at the very least, utterly harmless.”

The problem here is with the suggestion that one can participate so fully and enthusiastically, while “not really believing.” Do we really think that we can prostrate ourselves before God, utter the claims over and over, and generally mimic the more extreme religious believers without any ill effect? Can we read the Adam and Eve story again and again in a social context where it is taken seriously and literally, or fill our minds repeatedly with images of Jesus performing feats of magic, and still comfortably and readily acknowledge that they are “just stories,” not to be taken too literally? Here’s the Apostle’s Creed, regularly avowed to by millions of Christians:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence He shall come to judge the quick and dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of sins, the Resurrection of the Body, and the Life everlasting. Amen

Can you repeat this thousands or tens of thousands of times while surrounding yourself with people who all claim to genuinely believe it, and have it be evocative and aesthetic, but not contribute to any sort of attitude in your mind about what is real and what is true?

Keep in mind that my objection here only concerns the religious moderate who does not claim to take all these religious pronouncements so literally and seriously. Ironically, the evangelicals or the less moderate believers will agree with me: The things you say in church are serious, and should not be taken lightly. There is cognitive dissonance, and a degree of intellectual dishonesty in going through the motions without addressing the grounds and authenticity of the things you are saying and doing. Saying it and not meaning it is duplicitous.

The more extreme believers and I agree that we should all either believe and have good grounds for belief, or we should not pretend. The disagreement we will then have will be about whether or not there are rationally justifying grounds available to us to support these claims. But that’s all a different fight.

The religious moderate, in conceding that they don’t take lots of those things so literally or seriously, isn’t guilty of such outright irrationality. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to go through the motions and participate without epistemic responsibility for the words coming out of their mouths or the significance of their kneeling, hand waving, and prostrations.

What I’m arguing is first that we can’t really fully compartmentalize that way. We can’t really dissolve the cognitive dissonance because it isn’t really possible to strip out all of the metaphysical or assertion content from those actions. And second, trying to do so involves the religious moderate in an intellectual dishonesty and duplicity that none of us should be so willing to dismiss. Words matter and actions count. We all know that. A couple of examples makes it painfully clear.

Suppose that a boy is raised in the deep south as a member of the Klan. All his life, on a regular basis, his family, friends, and other from the community put on their white robes and hoods, and hold highly ritualized Klan meetings. They sing songs, burn crosses, hear devotionals about the evils of the inferior mogrel races, and so on.

Now he’s grown up. He’s become enlightened in his life and come to realize that contrary to what he was taught all of his life, black people are not genetically inferior, and the same for lots of the other things that he had always heard in those Klan ceremonies. Suppose he’s gotten so far past his upbringing that he’s fallen in love with and married a black woman.

After all those years, however, he’s held onto his robe and hood. And on Sundays he still enjoys putting it on and going to Klan rallies. He finds the songs and rituals evocative and aesthetically inspiring. The ceremonies, he tells his outraged wife, dramatize the human condition and “seek to slake the thirst for meaning and purpose.” And so on. He doesn’t really believe any of that stuff, he tells her. All that talk and ritual shouldn’t be taken so seriously and literally. And as long as the value of the Klan rallies are solely cultural and eschatological, there can’t be anything wrong with his going along.

The objection to the analogy, of course, will be that the ceremonies and words of religious services are not comparable to the malice and error of the Klan rally. The religious moderate will insist that while much of what people do and say in church isn’t literally true, it isn’t evil, or racist, or intolerant, or just so misguided.

There are several responses, however. First, in fact, a great deal of what goes on in churches and mosques and other religious ceremonies is intolerant, disrespectful, erroneous, and even racist or malicious. The rantings against white America from President Obama’s former preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, do not represent a tiny, obscure splinter sect. The mobilization from religious groups in favor of Proposition 8 in California recently to ban gay marriage was massive. When you go along with all of that, you’re culpable. Furthermore, it can be no accident that 51% of Americans still refuse to believe that life on Earth evolved. 55% of Americans subscribe to some form of rapture theology. And 36% maintain that the Book of Revelations with it’s apocalyptic imagery of 7 horned goats and an anti-Christ who lays waste to all the non-believers is “true prophecy.” For a lot of people, they aren’t just going along, evidently. They mean it. Is that you, or are you just one of the ones who sits quietly while they pump up their outrageous ideas?

Furthermore, when considered from some distance the Klan example doesn’t appear disanalogous because of their outrageous ideas. Is the Klan theory about the bastardized, mogrel, non-white races being descended from animals that much more outrageous than the view that an evil super being sends invisible, malicious demons to infect the bodies and minds of unsuspecting believers? Or that virgins can give birth? Or that dead people can come back from the grave?

Second, even if there is a significant difference between going to Klan rallies for nostalgia’s sake and the moderates’ engagement with religion, it is a difference in degree not in kind. We’ve all got to agree that it is highly implausible that a person could sanitize or compartmentalize their participation in such ceremonies enough to eliminate its cognitive and social effects. If the religious moderate is really convinced that their participation can be isolated, and the Klan example is too outrageous, then she should try these experiments:

Stand up in a room full of people you know and loudly announce, “I pledge my eternal soul to Satan, my master.” Those are just words, afterall, that need not be taken literally. Could you say it several times every day for years without its having any effect on you? Wouldn’t you worry at least a little bit that making the pledge might actually give your soul to Satan?

Imagine fully participating and performing all of the prayers, recitations, and physical ceremonies in an Islamic religious service, or some other unfamiliar tradition.

Suppose that President Obama had chosen to say, “So help me Allah.” at the end of his presidential oath.

Suppose that instead of “In God we trust,” U.S. currency said, “In Allah we trust,” or “In Satan we pledge our trust.”

For Catholics, instead of pledging yourself to the Nicene creed, imagine pledging to a religious creed that explicitly denies Catholicism.

And so on.

If you are being honest, you will acknowledge that some of these experiments, or something like them, would at least give you a twinge of hesitation. Perhaps you’d be so uncomfortable you would flat out refuse to do it. That is because words and actions matter. We can’t really detach ourselves from religious behaviors to such an extent that their metaphysical and factual import vanishes. And that means that you cannot be epistemically disengaged from rational responsibility for your words and ceremonial activities.

There are other unintended side effects from faking it. By saying it and acting it out, over and over again, we encourage more sloppiness, magical thinking, confusion, and duplicity in ourselves and those around us. If you know better, but fake it anyway, what are you doing to others who are genuinely trying to understand whether there is a God, or whether he talks to us through burning bushes? What about children who trust and mimic the words and actions of the adults they see? What precedent do you set or fortify by letting false, misleading, intolerant, or harmful ideas and practices slide? If it is negligent or abusive for me to refuse to get medical care for my children when they need it, or to fail to feed them, then how much better is it to fill their heads with patently false ideas about the world that I don’t really believe and that we have good reasons to reject?

The religious moderate wants to paint religion in the glowing light of cultural and metaphorical edification. He insists that he can bracket off the false, offending, extreme, or misleading assertions and implications of the words and actions. But we all know that you can’t talk the talk, or walk the walk over and over again with complete detachment. The ideas sink in. The influences are there, whether we acknowledge them or not. And the duplicity is bad for the moderate and for those around him.

23 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Dr. McCormick,

This post is spot-on and mirrors my feelings exactly. I, too, have used the example of Klan rallies in showing the pernicious, confused nature of moderate theism.

Religious moderates face a dilemma: Either assent to (1) belief but inaction ("God is a trinity; but I don't let that influence how I do scientific work in the lab") or (2) unbelief with action ("I go to church, pray, sing hymns, but I don't actually think that God causes earthquakes (Jer. 10:10)".

In both cases, besides being incredibly disingenuous, there is a part of them that is focused on matters nonexistent and false; and, as a result, their actions or beliefs are not predicated on what is. Since this obtains, then how could their actions or beliefs, if focused on derivative matters, fail to correspond with some moral failing, in some degree? Either as a complete waste of time, being liars to themselves and others, or (as you note) encouraging superstition, ritual, and enthusiasm? If ethics is based on metaphysics, then one is less likely to see or act on the good if they are wholly confused on the content of the latter.

In light of this, it is difficult to see even the most moderate and liberal of supernaturalists as morally suspect and conspicuous.

If you've been wondering why it seems like the world around us is unraveling, it's because the last days as foretold in the bible are now upon us. Just as it was 2000 years ago, many were unable to discern the signs of Jesus Christ's first coming (Mat 16:3), as will many concerning his second coming, which will occur very soon. Yes many have proclaimed a similar sentiment many times in the past, but their errors have no bearing on today other than to lull you into spiritual apathy, and that too was prophesied to occur in the last days.

If you're not a believer in Jesus Christ because you're an atheist, consider that the underlying impetus for your disbelief is most likely borne of pride and here's why:

When we die, if you as an atheist were right, then there is no upside or downside for anyone regarding the afterlife. We will all simply cease to exist

However if we Christians were right about our belief in the afterlife, then we will be given eternal life and you as an atheist will receive eternal damnation

Given the choices, the position held by an atheist is a fools bet any way you look at it because the atheist has everything to lose and nothing to gain. It is tantamount to accepting a “heads I win, tails you lose” coin toss proposition from someone. And that someone by the way is Satan (see Ephesians 6:12).

The only way to explain the attitude held by an atheist is pride, pure and simple. The intellectually dishonest and/or tortured reasoning used by atheists to try and disprove the existence of God is nothing more than attempts to posture themselves as superior (a symptom of pride). And as anyone who has read their bible knows, this is precisely the character flaw that befell Lucifer, God's formerly most high angel. (Isaiah 14:12-15). Is it any wonder then why the bible is so replete with references to pride as the cause of mankind's downfall?

Pride permeates our lives and burdens us in ways that most of us seldom recognize. Ironically, pride is the one thing that can blind someone to things even the unsighted can see. And sadly pride will blind many with an otherwise good heart, to accepting the offer of eternal salvation that Christ bought and paid for with his life.

In any event, if you're an atheist, I wish you only the best for every day of the rest of your life because for you, this life is as close to heaven as you'll ever get, but for believers in Christ, this life is as close to hell as we'll ever get.

If you're not a believer and follower of Jesus Christ because you are of another faith, please take the time to very carefully compare your faith to Christianity and ask yourself, why is the bible the only religious book with both hundreds of proven prophecies already fulfilled as well as those being fulfilled today? No other religion can claim anything remotely close to this fact. Many Christians who are serious students of bible prophecy are already aware of the role and significance of bible prophecy in foretelling end time events. God gave us prophecy as evidence of his divine holiness to know the begining from the end (Isa 46:10). God also believed prophecy to be so important that to those willing to read the most prophetic book in the bible, the Book of Revelation, he promised a special blessing (see Rev 1:3), and this is the only book in the bible that God gives its reader a special blessing for reading. Something to think about.

Don't risk losing Christ's offer of eternal life by not accepting him as your savior and by thinking that the bible is nothing more than a compilation of unrelated and scattered stories about people who lived 2,000 plus years ago. If you take the time to study (not just read) the bible, you will literally be shocked to learn things you would have never imagined would be revealed in it. Did you know that like parables, God also uses particular months and days in the Jewish calendar, Jewish Feasts and customs, solar and lunar phases, celestial alignments, gematria (Hebrew numerology) early bible events and more as patterns and models to foretell future events?

Consider the following interesting facts about the bible that testify to its God-inspired authorship:

Did you know that in Gen 12:2, God said he would bless Israel?. How else can you explain the grossly disproportionate level of success achieved by Jewish people as a tiny minority in the world, especially after all they have gone through? And how can you explain the success achieved by the tiny nation of Israel, surrounded by enemies outnumbering them 100 to 1 and yet still they remain victorious in all their wars?

Did you know that as evidence to indicate that Israel is the epicenter of the world from God's point of view is the fact that languages to the west of Israel are written and read from left to right as if pointing to Israel, and languages from countries to the east of Israel are written and read from right to left, again as though pointing to Israel. Just a coincidence, you say? I think not.

Did you know that the six days of creation and seventh day of rest in Genesis is a model for the six thousand years of this age (ending very soon), that is to be followed by a 1,000 year millennial reign by Christ (see 2 Peter 3:8)? Adam was born sometime prior to 4000 B.C., therefore our 6000 years are almost up.

Did you kow that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is hidden in the meaning of the Hebrew names listed in the genealogy of the book of Genesis (Research it online)? To deny this was God-inspired, one has to instead believe that a group of Jewish rabbis conspired to hide the Christian Gospel right inside a genealogy of their venerated Torah, which is not a very plausible explanation.

Did you know that solar eclipses, which the bible describes as the sun being black as sackcloth, and lunar eclipses, which the bible refers to as blood red moons, have prophetic meaning? Research it online. God showed Adam (and us) his plan for man's redemption through the use of celestial alignments. (research Mazzaroth online)

Did you know that much of the symbolism in the book of revelation refers to planetary alignments that will occur when certain events occur as prophesied? These planetary alignments also explained the birth of Christ, just search out The Bethlehem Star movie on the Internet.

Did you know that the references in Eze 39:4-17 and Rev 19:17-21 in the battle of Gog/Magog and Armageddon respectively, in which birds of prey will eat the flesh of the dead in battle from two enormous wars is based on fact? The largest bird migration in the world consisting of bilions of birds (34 species of raptors and various carrion birds) from several continents converge and fly over Israel every spring and fall. Coincidence? I think not.

Did you know that Hebrew numerology, also known as Gematria, and the numbers with biblical and prophetic significance are hidden in the Star of David? Google the video called "Seal of Jesus Christ"

Did you know that the seven Churches mentioned at the beginning of the Book of Revelation describe the seven stages the Church will go through?

There are literally hundreds of hidden messages in the bible like these that testify to the fact that the bible was God inspired, and statistically speaking, are all exponentially beyond the likelihood of any coincidence. You can find them yourselves if you only take the time to look into it. Remember Proverbs 25:2 "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings".

And finally, if you are Catholic, or one who subscribes to the emergent Church or seeker-friendly Church movement, please compare the doctrine taught, advocated or accepted by your Church, with the actual bible, notwithstanding some new-age version of the bible. And remember that although the bible is often referred to as the living bible, the word "living" was never intended to imply in any way that the bible "evolves" over time to meet, or be consistent with, the standards of man. It's just the opposite.

Well, am I getting through to you? If not, the answer might be explained in the response given by Jesus Christ in his Olivet discourse when he was asked by his disciples why he spoke the way he did (in parables, etc.) in the book of Matthew 13:10-16. What Jesus said could have easily been paraphrased more clearly as "so that the damned won't get it". Why did Christ respond the way he did when asked why he spoke this way? Is there something about pride (the bible says there is) that closes one's heart to seeing or hearing the messages supernaturally hidden in bible parables, models, typologies, and similes, etc.? That should give you something to think about, but don't take too long. Time is now very short.

If it sometimes seems like there are powers at work behind the powers we know, remember what it says in Ephesians 6:12 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." If you study the bible, it will become clearer.

And by the way, if you are a scoffer, this too was prophesied to occur in the last days. See 2 Peter 3:3.

However if we Christians were right about our belief in the afterlife, then we will be given eternal life and you as an atheist will receive eternal damnation

1) Not if you're wrong about which God runs that afterlife. For example (just one of many possible objections), what if there's an afterlife, and the Christian God who runs it rewards good works rather than mindless faith?

Given the choices, the position held by an atheist is a fools bet any way you look at it because the atheist has everything to lose and nothing to gain. It is tantamount to accepting a “heads I win, tails you lose” coin toss proposition from someone. And that someone by the way is Satan (see Ephesians 6:12).

2) Very odd. Unmistakably you are the one who is offering this "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition to me. Are you saying that you are Satan?

I thought about going through all of Armageddon's post point by point, but I think Reginald pretty well dismantled Pascal's wager (yet again) and the medication comment pretty well summed up the rest.

But, with that said, I must reply to two of the comments.

First, the age of the planet is 4.5 billion years, not 6000 years. That is the same magnitude of error as believing that each hair upon your head is 244 ft in diameter. If someone can be that far off on such a well established fact, why should I believe anything else they might put forward about the state of the universe?

Second, as for the proposition that, "And by the way, if you are a scoffer, this too was prophesied to occur in the last days," Well, there have been scoffers for 2000 years. In fact, in the pre-Constantinian world, the percentage of scoffers on the planet was significantly higher than what it is today. So why didn't the "end" come ca. 300 CE?

I'll let someone else address Newton, Einstein and the predictability of eclipses. But I'll give you hint, tensor calculus doesn't show up in any ancient books of prophecy.

The Armageddon post is really quite amazing for a lot of reasons. I am not optimistic that any sort of direct response would be of use. And it's clear that no amount of reasoning would make any difference to such a person. The vast barricade of an apocalyptic ideology has been circled up and the only sort information that is even considered is the Bible. And even there, the only interpretation that he's allowing of the Bible is some sort of end-times prophesy filter. What he's going to find, and you can do this with any book that is sufficiently vague, are indicators that fulfill his apocalyptic expectations. And any events that don't seem to fit are either part of the prophecy and just haven't been distorted in to match yet, or they are deceptions, scoffing, distractions, temptations, and so on.

What's important here is that the view that is being presented is not an obscure, crackpot view. There are 10s of millions of Americans who are utterly convinced that we are in the End Times and that the rapture is coming in their life times. Never mind that every generation since Jesus has also been convinced of that.

One of the dangers of our not being more intolerant at least in conversation of all of this religious delusion is that by letting it go, we foster environments where this kind of hijacking of people's consciousness is quite common. This guy appears to be completely beyond help. That makes him really dangerous, and unapproachable with evidence or reasoning.

I'm conflicted. I think magical thinking certainly has the potential for dangerous consequences (denying people rights based on sexual orientation, condemning condom use in an age of AIDS, moral justification for genocide, etc.)

On the other hand, I know fully compartmentalized theists that wouldn't advocate the above and if asked would condemn them. They gain comfort from their beliefs and I'm not sure I should disabuse them away from those beliefs.

For the time being, I'm leaning on the stop magical thinking side. The biggest reason for that is the liberal theists apparent inability to police their own.

When I see anti-Atheist bigotry, religious gay bashing, religious encroachment on First Amendment liberties, I never see liberal theists being in the forefront of condemning those practices.

Consequently, I'm left with the working assumption that protecting the magic premise is more important than protecting their fellow human.

Magical thinking is dangerous and deserves ridicule (why has no liberal theist pointed out that Brahmi, Cyrillic, Khmer, et. al. are written left to right and what about north and south and up and down writing?)

To conclude, liberal theists, I and many like me are pragmatists. If you police your own, I really have better things to do. If not I am more than willing to continue to show that the god hypothesis is untenable and to accept it shows a lack of critical thinking ability that can lead to really negative results for my fellow humans.

P.S. For those who would say, "what about those godless communists?" I actually put my life where my mouth was to stop the spread of that. So, I find the argument unimpressive.

I think you hit the real point when you wrote, "One of the dangers of our not being more intolerant at least in conversation of all of this religious delusion is that by letting it go, we foster environments where this kind of hijacking of people's consciousness is quite common."

By not speaking up, it is a normal human reaction that we are ceding the point. In fact, when I really look at it, my previous post makes an argument from laziness.

This is probably the third time I've said this but darn, for a philosopher, you're one heck of an empiricist.

Fully describe the differences between Atheism, Agnosticism and Deism. Include your discussion the significant ways in which world views could be differentiated?

Define Spinoza's god and give an example.

I'll wait.

As for Darwin when you wrote, "the end of his life it was his faith"

Could you expand on this, I would be interested in any death-bead conversion story that hasn't been thoroughly repudiated by the people that were actually there at the end of his life. And yes, the Lady Hope story has been fully discredited. Even Answers in flippin' Genesis repudiate it.

My book is out:

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Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester. Teaching at CSUS since 1996. My main area of research and publication now is atheism and philosophy of religion. I am also interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and rational decision theory/critical thinking.

Quotes:

"Science. It works, bitches."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!"George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Many Paths, No God.

I don't go to church, I AM a church, for fuck's sake. I'm MINISTRY. --Al Jourgensen

Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, “It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

If life evolved, then there isn't anything left for God to do.

The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned to the universe. Victor Stenger

Skeptical theists choose to ride the trolley car of skepticism concerning the goods that God would know so as to undercut the evidential argument from evil. But once on that trolley car it may not be easy to prevent that skepticism from also undercutting any reasons they may suppose they have for thinking that God will provide them and the worshipful faithful with life everlasting in his presence. William Rowe

Unless you're one of those Easter-bunny vitalists who believes that personality results from some unquantifiable divine spark, there's really no alternative to the mechanistic view of human nature. Peter Watts

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. E.O. Wilson

Creating humans who could understand the contrast between good and evil without subjecting them to eons of horrible suffering would be an utterly inconsequential matter for an omnipotent being. MM

The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity? It would be so easy to improve upon the 10 Commandments. How about "Try not to deep fry all of your food"? Sam Harris

Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great

We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great

If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby.

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in." Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 36.

"Only a tiny fraction of corpsesfossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 127.

One cannot take, "believing in X gives me hope, makes me moral, or gives me comfort," to be a reason for believing X. It might make me moral if I believe that I will be shot the moment I do something immoral, but that doesn't make it possible for me to believe it, or to take its effects on me as reasons for thinking it is true. Matt McCormick

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Top Ten Myths about Belief in God

1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.

There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.

2. Myth: Prayer works.

Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.

3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.

There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.

4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.

In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.

5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.

We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.

6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.

Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.

7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.

The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.

8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.

All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it isall going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?

9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.

People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.

10: Myth: There is a God.

Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They’re Mistaken)

1. You can’t prove atheism.You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.

Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.

As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith?Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like?Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing?(they aren’t).If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith?Faith is a bad thing?That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.

2. The evidence shows that we should believe.

If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken.Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.

3. You should have faith.

Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.

4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.

These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.

5.Atheism is bad for you.Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.

First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field.Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken.What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more.There are a number of obvious natural explanations.Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases.Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons?Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.

Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.”It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.

Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions.“Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

7.Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.

Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.”For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race.There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice.But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us.Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters.Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.

Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes.Real respect is found in disagreement.The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.

8.Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.

At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference.The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines.By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method.The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals:actively seek out disconfirming evidence.The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.